


Unacceptable Losses

by AdAbolendam



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Banter, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, May loses more than herself in Bahrain, Trauma, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 12:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11691324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdAbolendam/pseuds/AdAbolendam
Summary: “Just do me a favor and don’t take any unnecessary risks on this one, okay?”May sighed and rolled her eyes.“You heard what the man said. If there’s any trouble he’ll ‘call in the cavalry.’ Stop worrying.”Phil shook his head and leaned back in the seat.Right.What could go wrong?





	Unacceptable Losses

_“Then I send in the cavalry.”_

Coulson and May exchanged a smirk. Agent Hart, their tactical support team commander, always had what they considered an unnecessary flare for the dramatic. 

“He’s exactly the kind of guy who would say, ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning,’ if he had served in ‘Nam,” May had once joked with a roll of her eyes. 

Coulson had to swallow a laugh at the memory. May ducked her head, still grinning. 

She had been smiling a lot more recently. Ever since she had told him about her and Andrew’s plans to have a baby, she had been more animated, more energetic. He was happy for her. 

Truth be told, he was excited at the prospect himself. Seeing as all of his forays into the world of romance had fallen flat for one reason or another, May was about as close to anything resembling family he had. The possibility of having a chance to play “uncle” to her son or daughter had given him something to smile about as well. 

Coulson’s eyes narrowed a fraction as May continued to smile to herself while she packed away her gear. He was glad to see her happy, but this was something different. She seemed unfocused, almost dreamy. If he did not know better he would say… 

No. 

She would have told him. 

Right?

“May?” He asked. “Can I have a word?”

May came back to the present with whiplash speed. She nodded curtly and followed him across the cargo bay. When they reached the other side of the parked SVU, occluded from prying eyes, he turned to face her.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Though he had tried to keep his voice level and steady, there was a lilt to his cadence that betrayed him. If his suspicions were correct, it was going to be hard to stay mad at her. 

May opened her mouth but nothing came out. She settled for pressing her lips together and crossing her arms in lieu of a reply. Coulson stared her down, coaching himself not to look away even for a second. In the end, it was her eyes that darted nervously to the side to avoid his.

“A-ha!” He said, victoriously. 

“Keep your voice down!” She hissed.

“So it’s true?” He whispered. “You’re pregnant?”

May’s mouth quirked to the side and she lowered her head.

“Are you blushing?” He teased. “Is Melinda ‘Commit-to-the-Mission-All-The-Way’ May, blushing?”

“Shut up,” she muttered, punching him in the arm. 

“Ow!” 

“Seriously, Phil,” May continued. “No one knows yet.”

“What do you mean ‘no one?’” Coulson asked, massaging the bruise forming on his right bicep. “What about Andrew?”

May shook her head.

“I had a false positive a few months back,” she explained. “I didn’t want to get his hopes up again if it turned out to be nothing.”

“So you sure this time?”

She nodded slowly. The smile was returning to her face. 

“Six weeks along,” she said. “I think this is the real deal.”

“That’s amazing, Melinda,” Coulson said, squeezing her arm. 

“Yeah.”

“You know, you really should tell your partner little things like this,” he chastised. “Should you even be in the field?”

May sighed. 

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “You know I can take care of myself.”

“Not you I’m worried about,” he parried. 

In fact, it startled him a little how much he was worried. The idea of his partner having a baby had seemed far away and hypothetical. Now, suddenly, it was very concrete and present. 

She was supposed to watch his back. As a specialist, that was her prerogative: to protect him so he could do his job. Coulson never worried about his own safety in the field, because he knew that she was always on his six. 

What if it was her that needed protecting? Could he be the shield that she had always been for him?

“Coulson, this is Index Asset Evaluation and Intake,” she placated. “We’ve done this how many times before?”

“Did you _see_ the tactical team that Hart brought with him?” Coulson asked. “We’re going after woman who stopped a car with her body and walked away without a scratch.”

“I’ll be careful,” she insisted, crossing her arms. 

“You’d better be,” he replied sincerely. 

May smiled her “I’ve-got-this” smirk and turned to leave. 

“Hold on,” Coulson said. His hand shot out and grabbed hers. 

When she pivoted to face him again, his mouth went dry. Suddenly, whatever he had planned to say was gone. Something had changed in these last few minutes. His brain was pumping out static instead of coherent thoughts. His best friend was going to be a mother and he was ecstatic, terrified, and… something else he could not quite place. 

“Phil?” May asked. 

He dropped her hand. 

“I’m really happy for you, May,” he managed. 

“Me too,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Can you feel anything different yet?”

May shook her head.

“Just my pants getting tighter.”

Coulson glanced down at her waist. She did look a _little_ bigger. Or maybe it was just his imagination. 

“Go on,” May said, with a sigh. “I know you want to.”

He felt his cheeks grow warm, but did not deny the accusation. He reached out his hand and tentatively placed it on the small rise below her belt. 

“Huh,” he said. “I can feel something.”

“Yeah,” May agreed. “She just feels like a lump right now.”

“She?” Coulson asked, letting his hand fall away from her. 

May shrugged. 

“Feels like a ‘she.’” She answered. 

_“Descent commencing,”_ the pilot announced over the PA system. _“Please find a seat and strap in. We will be on the ground in Manama in 20 minutes.”_

Coulson glanced over at his partner one last time as she adjusted the safety straps on her jump seat.

“Just do me a favor and don’t take any unnecessary risks on this one, okay?”

May sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“If it makes you feel better, I won’t even bring my gun,” she said.

“You never bring a gun,” he retorted. “Don’t you always say that you only take a gun if you need it?”

“Well then, I guess I won’t need it,” she shot back. “You heard what the man said. If there’s any trouble he’ll ‘call in the cavalry.’ Stop worrying.”

Phil shook his head and leaned back in the seat. 

Right. What could go wrong?

***

May’s head wasn’t in the game and she knew it.

As Coulson negotiated with Eva Belyakov, the potential asset, a young girl caught her eye. Her attention wandered from surveying for potential threats to watch the girl as she wove through the crowd, laughing and tapping strangers on the shoulder. May smiled, marvelling at the happiness that came with the naivety of childhood. The girl had no idea what kind of viper’s nest she had stumbled into. She was a child playing a game of tag with every soldier and merchant, completely oblivious to the dangers of the world. 

That was what May wanted. 

To help make the world a place where concerns for one’s safety were a distant fear. It was what had driven her to get out of bed and fight every day for the last twenty years. In spite of all of the threats and horrors that she had seen in her lifetime, it was children like that girl that made her believe that people were worth protecting. The world was still far from perfect, but she had done her part to make it better. 

She was finally at a place in her life where she could step back and leave the fighting to someone else, for a little while at least, while she raised a family of her own. She promised herself that she would keep her own child’s innocence and happiness safe for as long as the world would allow her. 

May’s eyes followed the girl as she ran between two men dressed in business suits. 

Their gait and posture screamed ‘ex-military.’ May caught the tell-tale outline of concealed weapons hidden at their sides. Their presence here was not sanctioned by the Bahrainis. Whoever they were, their interference would not lead to anything good. 

“Locals incoming,” May warned the team. “Gun. Blue shirt.”

Coulson spared a glanced over in her direction before resuming his conversation with Belyakov. 

“Why don’t we go somewhere more secure?” He suggested.

“No,” Belyakov replied petulantly. “I like it here.”

May watched Agent O’Brian falter in his negotiation with the local muscle. The familiar ache of adrenaline pulsed from her scalp to her fingertips.

“Coulson, you’re running out of time,” she alerted him. 

“What is it you want?” She heard Coulson ask Belyakov.

“Pain.”

Eva Belyakov punctuated her demand by kicking a table across the market. May watched the chaos unfold around her. O’Brian and the mercenaries drew their guns and squared off against each other. Coulson tried to persuade Belyakov to calm down. 

May’s hands reflexively went for her weapon and fumbled on the smooth fabric where her holster would normally attach to her belt. 

Damn it. 

In less than a minute, a simple negotiation had become a siege. Belyakov and her recruits shot the Bahraini National Security agent and had taken O’Brian and the little girl hostage. 

How had this happened?

***

May was fuming when she reported back to Coulson. A few quick interviews with the local merchants had told her everything she needed to know.

“We ID’d Belyakov’s friends,” she informed him. “Local militia, street gang basically. That’s their stronghold.”

Coulson phoned O’Brian to get a feel for the situation on the inside. His response was as brief as it was cryptic, “Leave us alone.”

What the hell did that mean?

This was her fault. If she had been paying closer attention, she would have spotted those thugs before they had a chance to close in on the girl and shoot their local contact in the chest. 

May watched the tactical team move into position with a mixture of anxiety and self-loathing. 

“I should go in,” she told Coulson. 

He replied with a look that he usually reserved for new recruits who had stepped over the line.

“Not a chance,” he said flatly. “They’ve got this. You and I need to cover surveillance.”

She let out a frustrated sigh and followed him into the parked van. 

As the shots and cries rang out through their earpieces, May’s hands curled into fists. Her eyes darted across the screen, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. 

“All operators check in,” Coulson commanded. 

Hissing static was the only response. 

“What was that?” She asked. “Were they taken out or did they take themselves out? What about the little girl?”

“I don’t know, Melinda.”

He was hesitating. Protocol dictated that he call in the situation to HQ, but he made no move to contact the Hub. They were losing time.

“Phil, you’ve got to call it in,” she said. 

“Let’s just think about this,” he argued. “That building just swallowed twelve agents in a minute. We have no idea what happened in there. We weren’t prepared for this situation. There’s no backup.”

“I know,” she stated. “And if the Bahraini military shows up, they’ll level the place and kill everyone inside. I can stop that from happening. Make the call.”

He had to get the go-ahead from the higher ups at SHIELD for her to take out Belyakov by herself. 

“May,” his voice faltered. “I—I can’t.”

“Phil, this is bigger than me,” she protested. “You know it’s the right call.”

She could see the battle that was waging in his head. She knew how much he cared for her safety, but he also knew she was right. 

“I can talk to the military when they show up,” he offered. “Brief them on the tactical situation. They can make a calculated assault.”

“Even you’re not that persuasive,” she scoffed.

“May, I can’t let you do this. Not now.”

Her heart sunk to her gut. His eyes were begging her to see reason, to put herself first for once. Maybe she should. It was not just her life that was at stake. 

But she could do this. She knew she could do this. If she hesitated now, how would she look Andrew in the eye when she told him that she was carrying his child, and that their baby’s life had come at the cost of a dozen others?

“You don’t have to let me,” she said. “Just don’t get in my way.”

“May!”

She grabbed her knife and jumped out of the van before he could stop her.

“Just buy me some time, Coulson!” She yelled over her shoulder.

***

Night came quickly in the desert.

The dark closed in around them as Coulson struggled to convince the increasingly restless local military not to bomb the building. He was cursing himself for leaving his own firearm on the plane. He could hold his own in a fight, but he did not like his odds against a full military assault team. He would struggle with everything he had though, if that’s what it took to stop them from taking down that building with his partner inside. 

“Just, please—

A gunshot rang from the besieged building through the empty streets. 

Coulson broke off mid-sentence and raced toward the sound of the blast, with the full Bahraini assault squad at his heels. He had to catch himself from tripping over his feet when he reached the room at the top of the stairs. 

Shattered glass and spent bullet casings littered the floor. The SHIELD tactical team stood gaping in slack-jawed catatonia at the broken body of Eva Belyakov. In the midst of the freeze-frame of carnage sat Melinda May. One of her legs was bloody and stuck out at an odd angle. In her arms was the limp body of the girl that was taken hostage. A bullet wound in the middle of the girl’s forehead marred the peaceful expression on her face. 

“Oh no,” he whispered. 

If he could have, he would have scooped May off the floor and ran with her toward the sound of the approaching ambulance as fast as he could. As it was, it took five minutes of cajoling and pleading to get her to release her grip on the dead girl in her arms. More disturbing than her refusal to give the girl up was the haunted look in her eyes when she stared straight through him. 

She did not move, even as the paramedics came and took the girl away. 

“May,” Coulson said, trying to get her attention. “We need to get you out of here.”

Nothing. No response. 

The blank expression on her face terrified him. He was close to shaking her, begging her to come back. 

“Melinda,” he pleaded. “You have to be seen by a doctor.”

He glanced around him, making sure no one would overhear. 

“We need to make sure your baby is okay.”

She blinked and jerked a little, as if she had just noticed he was there. 

She nodded and allowed him to pull her to her feet. 

Members of the SHIELD tactical team stared at May in varying states of lucidity and confusion as they limped through the street.

“There must have been thirty guys in there,” one of them muttered. “But she got our whole team out.”

“The Cavalry went in after all,” Hart said.

Coulson gritted his teeth, knowing that he could not actually punch the agent in the face without dropping May. 

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “Every agent who walked out of that building is alive because of you.”

They reached the ambulance, but there was no one inside. Coulson looked around desperately. All of the paramedics were busy attending to the dazed SHIELD agents. He eased May down to sit on the floor of the ambulance and tried to get the attention of one of the EMTs.

“How do you say, ‘get your ass over here’ in Arabic?” He asked her. 

May did not even look up. 

“Never mind,” he muttered.

“Hey!” He shouted over her head towards a medic that was patching up O’Brian. “I need help here now!” 

The EMT scowled, but trudged over their direction. 

“The girl,” May stuttered, finally looking up at him. “I couldn’t save her. She didn’t understand. I tried.”

“I know,” he reassured her. It might have been callous, but at the moment, the dead girl in the building was the furthest thing from his mind. “You did good. Now, let’s just focus on you, okay?”

The paramedic interrupted them, asking something in Arabic. 

“She’s been shot,” Coulson answered in English, indicating the wound in May’s leg. 

She winced as the medic bent down and probed at the wound. 

May hissed at him in accented Arabic and he looked up at her, startled. He barked a question at her and May responded. Coulson’s eyes darted between the two of them without comprehension. 

“What’s happening?” He asked her.

“He’s going to take me to the hospital,” she answered. 

Before he knew what was happening, the paramedic had hoisted May into the van and was closing the door behind him. 

“May!” He called out.

The last thing he saw before the door was closed in his face was the emptiness in his partner’s eyes as she looked past him, not seeing him at all.

***

It took six hours before Coulson caught up to her at the hospital.

Six hours of liaising with the military, organizing the team’s extraction and calling in the sitrep to the Hub. It was not until he was in the car on the way to the hospital that he had a chance to phone Andrew. The assurance that May was not in a critical state did not dissuade her husband from jumping on the next flight to Manama. 

Coulson could not blame him. He just had no idea how he was going to look Andrew in the eye after his admonishment this morning. 

_“Keep her safe out there.”_

_“It’s her job to keep me safe,”_ he had responded.

She had done her job well. She had kept him and everyone else on their team out of harm’s way. Now, she was in a hospital bed with a bullet hole in her leg, several broken bones, and suffering from PTSD for her trouble. And that was the best-case scenario. 

After some ardent negotiating in a garbled mix of English and broken Arabic with the hospital staff, Coulson was finally allowed access to May’s room.

His breath caught in his throat when he saw her. 

She was curled up on her side in the bed. Her arms were crossed tightly over her middle and her hair covered her face. An IV drip ran from a metallic box at the bedside to her arm. 

Coulson felt his gut turn to ice as he read the label printed in three languages on the machine. 

Morphine.

No medical personnel in their right mind would have administered a narcotic to a pregnant woman.

He felt himself deflate as the breath he had been holding left him all at once. 

_Oh May. I’m so sorry._

May groaned from beneath him on the bed and brushed the hair out of her eyes. 

“Hey,” he whispered. 

“The baby’s gone,” she deadpanned. “I lost her.”

Coulson sat on the side of the bed and rested his hand on her shoulder. 

“I’m so, so sorry, May.”

“Not your fault,” she whispered through cracked lips. “Should have listened to you. I did it. I killed her.”

Coulson’s eyebrows knitted together. He could not believe what he was hearing. This was not the woman he had known, joked with, laughed with, and fought alongside on and off for the last decade. 

“No,” he protested. “Don’t say that.”

“I did,” she insisted, tonelessly. “She’s lucky she died.”

Coulson squeezed her arm, silently begging her to stop.

“No one deserves me as a mother,” she continued. “I’m a monster.”

“No!” He exclaimed. 

How could she say that? How could she even _think_ that?

“You’d make an amazing mother,” he said. “May, you went in there and saved everyone in our unit. You risked everything to bring our team back. That girl was not your fault. Please don’t give up on yourself because of this.”

She turned away from him and buried her face in the pillow. Coulson watched helplessly as her body shook with sobs. 

After hesitating for a moment, he laid down next to her and held her as tight as he dared, feeling his shirt grow warm and wet from her tears. There was nothing he could do but mutter assurances that he knew she would not hear. He hoped she would not notice that he was crying as well. 

She was gone. 

The Melinda May he knew and loved for so many years had disappeared in that building and part of him knew that she was never coming back. The woman that laid beside him was lost and broken. He would do everything he could to salvage the pieces, but he had no idea if it would be enough. 

She had lost more than just herself in there. She lost her child, and her hope along with it.

Coulson felt the loss as acutely as if it had been his own. The place inside him that had been filled with happiness for her had been was hollowed out and replaced with grief. He should have done more to protect her baby. He should have done more to protect her. 

“I spoke with Andrew,” he told her, when her cries had quieted. “He’ll be here in a few hours.”

May jerked away from him and looked him in the eye with startling clarity. 

“You can’t tell him.”

“What?”

“Please, Phil,” she begged. “You can’t tell him about the baby. He’ll hate me. He should hate me. I can’t… please don’t.”

“I won’t,” he assured her quietly. “But I think you should. Andrew could never hate you. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

“Yes. I should,” she said. “I have to. Promise me you won’t tell him.”

“I promise.”

May let out a shuttering sigh and rested her head against his chest. He stroked her back until she fell into a fitful sleep.

***

Coulson had not meant to dose off, but the next thing he knew, the alarm on his wristwatch was startling him awake.

11:00 am. 

Andrew would have landed by now. He would be at the hospital within the hour. 

Coulson had to clean himself up so he could meet him when he arrived. Even though he had no intention of breaking his promise to May, Andrew should not have to see his wife in this state without a cursory explanation. 

He hoped he would forgive him for letting this happen to her, but he would understand if he could not. Coulson was not sure if he could forgive himself.

May sighed in her sleep as he pulled away from her and sat up.

“You won’t be alone on this,” he whispered. “I’m not giving up on you.”

He leaned over and kissed her on her forehead. He allowed himself one last glance at her before straightening his tie and heading out into the lobby to meet her husband.


End file.
